Club and country
Happy new year and welcome to 2014 with paella and bovril.
After a wee winter break Spanish football is back and so is Messi. FC Barcelona is buzzing with the return of el Rey.
This dish of P n B come from the Raith game against Dumbarton. The home side came out on top with a 2-1 victory. Enjoy
Doesn't matter how hard you try to avoid it is guaranteed that the conversation will come around to football. Even in serious business meetings the talk of future company projections will be halted so they can all have their two pesetas worth of opinion on the previous night's game. For some reason they don't seem to know much about my Raith Rovers tuppence worth I have to put in, they are learning though! After the latest derby match with Espanyol a few of the my Barcelona business students were curious about Fife's local rivalries. After several attempts at pronouncing the Kingdom's finest football teams a strange question was asked "which team is the most viva escocia?"
When you say a Scottish clubs name, the majority of the time you can associate that team with a town or city, Hearts in Edinburgh, Ross County in Dingwall, Partick Thistle in Glasgow but do we have a team that is the team of Scotland? Barcelona sells itself, partly, on being Catalunya's team - you say Catalan football, I think Barcelona!
There are over 7 million residents of this autonomus region, and a large percentage of them will support Barcelona in one way or another; be it football, basketball, politics, handball or roller hockey, this club has something for you to get behind.
This season has seen the national pride go a little further and a clear message about national pride. After only 21 days on sale the new away strip had broken all previous sales records. The season 2013/14 strip features the very distinct red-and-yellow stripes of f the Catalan flag. Well, here they say senyera (name of the Catalan flag), I say it is awfy like a Partick Thistle strip! This strip would be at home at Firhill and you would have to look twice to see if the name on the back of the shirt was Neymar Jr or John Baird.
This strip has been the must have item for this season. Camp Nou used to be awash with the scarlet and blue but now it is brightly coloured with the red and yellow of a very Madrid-baiting symbol of Catalan pride and nationalism.
After a lot of discussion and thought it was decided that Scotland, football, rugby, elephant polo, was the team most "viva escocia". As someone pointed out "not even the Catalans would wear skirts with no pants to a game in winter!" Supporting your country and having fun doing so should be the best way to show national pride: can a club be a good substitute for country?
After a wee winter break Spanish football is back and so is Messi. FC Barcelona is buzzing with the return of el Rey.
This dish of P n B come from the Raith game against Dumbarton. The home side came out on top with a 2-1 victory. Enjoy
Doesn't matter how hard you try to avoid it is guaranteed that the conversation will come around to football. Even in serious business meetings the talk of future company projections will be halted so they can all have their two pesetas worth of opinion on the previous night's game. For some reason they don't seem to know much about my Raith Rovers tuppence worth I have to put in, they are learning though! After the latest derby match with Espanyol a few of the my Barcelona business students were curious about Fife's local rivalries. After several attempts at pronouncing the Kingdom's finest football teams a strange question was asked "which team is the most viva escocia?"
When you say a Scottish clubs name, the majority of the time you can associate that team with a town or city, Hearts in Edinburgh, Ross County in Dingwall, Partick Thistle in Glasgow but do we have a team that is the team of Scotland? Barcelona sells itself, partly, on being Catalunya's team - you say Catalan football, I think Barcelona!
There are over 7 million residents of this autonomus region, and a large percentage of them will support Barcelona in one way or another; be it football, basketball, politics, handball or roller hockey, this club has something for you to get behind.
This season has seen the national pride go a little further and a clear message about national pride. After only 21 days on sale the new away strip had broken all previous sales records. The season 2013/14 strip features the very distinct red-and-yellow stripes of f the Catalan flag. Well, here they say senyera (name of the Catalan flag), I say it is awfy like a Partick Thistle strip! This strip would be at home at Firhill and you would have to look twice to see if the name on the back of the shirt was Neymar Jr or John Baird.
This strip has been the must have item for this season. Camp Nou used to be awash with the scarlet and blue but now it is brightly coloured with the red and yellow of a very Madrid-baiting symbol of Catalan pride and nationalism.
After a lot of discussion and thought it was decided that Scotland, football, rugby, elephant polo, was the team most "viva escocia". As someone pointed out "not even the Catalans would wear skirts with no pants to a game in winter!" Supporting your country and having fun doing so should be the best way to show national pride: can a club be a good substitute for country?
Comments
Post a Comment